Soult's corps included four infantry divisions under Pierre Hugues Victoire Merle, Julien Augustin Joseph Mermet, Henri François Delaborde, and Étienne Heudelet de Bierre, and three divisions of cavalry under Jean Thomas Guillaume Lorge, Armand Lebrun de La Houssaye, and Jean Baptiste Marie Franceschi-Delonne.

While Soult plunged into Portugal, Galicia in northwest Spain was to be held by Michel Ney's VI Corps, which had 16,000–18,000 men.

[5] At this time, Soult loaned Ney one brigade of Lorge's dragoons and, in exchange, added the 17th Light Infantry Regiment to Delaborde's division.

[7] On 18 February, Soult sent back to Tui most of his wagon train and 36 of his heavier artillery pieces escorted by Merle's division.

From Ourense, Soult's troops headed for Chaves, Portugal, via Allariz and Monterrei, hoping to crush the Spanish division of Pedro Caro, 3rd Marquis of la Romana on the way.

[10] At Chaves, Francisco Silveira assembled a force of perhaps 12,000 Portuguese of whom about half were armed with firearms and the others pikes or farm implements.

After two skirmishes that ended badly for the Portuguese, Silveira ordered his motley force to abandon Chaves and withdraw to a defensible position south of the town.

Unable to dispose of so many prisoners, Soult simply sent the armed citizens, militiamen, and ordenanza home and impressed the 500 regulars into a turncoat legion (most deserted at the first opportunity).

Soult's main forces took a road that went west, crossed the mountains into the Cávado River valley, passed through Ruivães and Salamonde, and entered the plains near Braga.

[14] The better-armed troops were the 2nd Battalion of the Loyal Lusitanian Legion (700 men), part of the 9th Viana Infantry Regiment, and the Braga militia.

Meanwhile, Silveira found that Soult's corps was no longer in front of him, so he sent 3,000 troops to attack Merle's rearguard; this force was easily repulsed.

While waiting for the rest of Soult's corps to arrive, Maximilien Sébastien Foy's brigade seized a section of high ground that projected in front of the main Portuguese position.

He had been appointed to the Portuguese Regency by Hew Whitefoord Dalrymple, but rather than work with his colleagues in Lisbon, he returned to Porto and assumed almost dictatorial powers.

[13] As Soult's professional troops approached, Freire became demoralized and began sending his army's heavy baggage and guns to the rear.

On 19 March, Eben pushed forward his right flank into Lanhoso, but Mermet's division soon drove this force back to Monte Vallongo.

Soult gave these captives copies of a proclamation offering a pardon for all soldiers who surrendered and sent them back under a flag of truce.

[14] Knowing that he faced an army of rabble, Soult decided to deliver a frontal assault, believing that the enemy formation would collapse as soon as the French closed with it.

[23] When the infantry of Delaborde and Heudelet advanced, the Portuguese set up a wild cheer and discharged a heavy fire, but this caused relatively few casualties.

The Portuguese stayed firm as the French climbed the slope, but as their opponents reached the upper level of the plateau, the defenders began to flinch and scatter.

An officer of the 19th Dragoons wrote, "we made a great butchery of them", cutting down the Portuguese as they fled through the streets of Braga and a considerable distance beyond.

Oman explained the disproportion of killed to prisoners as the result of the French soldiers being in a state of "nervous irritation" at having been constantly the target of snipers and ambushes.

[25] The French initially believed that the one-sided slaughter would put an end to the guerilla warfare that they had endured, but they were quickly disappointed.

While many Portuguese survivors of the debacle went home, a large force reassembled behind the Ave River and prepared to defend its crossings.

Portuguese forces blocked Soult's corps from any contact with Tui in northwest Spain and Silveira's troops harassed convoys between Braga and Chaves.

Soult allowed his troops three days of rest at Braga, while sending his cavalry to reconnoiter to countryside between there and the Ave River.